Frank took this as an ordinary lecture, meant to inculcate general good conduct, such as old bores of aunts are apt to inflict on youthful victims in the shape of nephews and nieces.
“Yes,” said Frank; “I suppose so; and I mean to go along all square, aunt, and no mistake. When I get back to Cambridge, I’ll read like bricks.”
His aunt did not care two straws about his reading. It was not by reading that the Greshams of Greshamsbury had held their heads up in the county, but by having high blood and plenty of money. The blood had come naturally to this young man; but it behoved him to look for the money in a great measure himself. She, Lady de Courcy, could doubtless help him; she might probably be able to fit him with a wife who would bring her money onto his birth. His reading was a matter in which she could in no way assist him; whether his taste might lead him to prefer books or pictures, or dogs and horses, or turnips in drills, or old Italian plates and dishes, was a matter which did not much signify; with which it was not at all necessary that his noble aunt should trouble herself.
“Oh! you are going to Cambridge again, are you? Well, if your father wishes it;—though very little is ever gained now by a university connexion.”
“I am to take my degree in October, aunt; and I am determined, at any rate, that I won’t be plucked.”
“Plucked!”
“No; I won’t be plucked. Baker was plucked last year, and all because he got into the wrong set at John’s. He’s an excellent fellow if you knew him. He got among a set of men who did nothing but smoke and drink beer. Malthusians, we call them.”
“Malthusians!”
“‘Malt,’ you know, aunt, and ‘use;’ meaning that they drink beer. So poor Harry Baker got plucked. I don’t know that a fellow’s any the worse; however, I won’t get plucked.”
By this time the party had taken their place round the long board, Mr Gresham sitting at the top, in the place usually occupied by Lady Arabella. She, on the present occasion, sat next to her son on the one side, as the countess did on the other. If, therefore, Frank now went astray, it would not be from want of proper leading.
“Aunt, will you have some beef?” said he, as soon as the soup and fish had been disposed of, anxious to perform the rites of hospitality now for the first time committed to his charge.
“Do not be in a hurry, Frank,” said his mother; “the servants will—”
“Oh! ah! I forgot; there are cutlets and those sort of things. My hand is not in yet for this work, aunt. Well, as I was saying about Cambridge—”
“Is Frank to go back to Cambridge, Arabella?” said the countess to her sister-in-law, speaking across her nephew.
“So his father seems to say.”
“Is it not a waste of time?” asked the countess.
“You know I never interfere,” said the Lady Arabella; “I never liked the idea of Cambridge myself at all. All the de Courcys were Christ Church men; but the Greshams, it seems, were always at Cambridge.”
“Would it not be better to send him abroad at once?”
“Much better, I would think,” said the Lady Arabella; “but you know, I never interfere: perhaps you would speak to Mr Gresham.”
The countess smiled grimly, and shook her head with a decidedly negative shake. Had she said out loud to the young man, “Your father is such an obstinate, pigheaded, ignorant fool, that it is no use speaking to him; it would be wasting fragrance on the desert air,” she could not have spoken more plainly. The effect on Frank was this: that he said to himself, speaking quite as plainly as Lady de Courcy had spoken by her shake of the face, “My mother and aunt are always down on the governor, always; but the more they are down on him the more I’ll stick to him. I certainly will take my degree: I will read like bricks; and I’ll begin tomorrow.”
“Now will you take some beef, aunt?” This was said out loud.
The Countess de Courcy was very anxious to go on with her lesson without loss of time; but she could not, while surrounded by guests and servants, enunciate the great secret: “You must marry money, Frank; that is your one great duty; that is the matter to be borne steadfastly in your mind.” She could not now, with sufficient weight and impress of emphasis, pour this wisdom into his ears; the more especially as he was standing up to his work of carving, and was deep to his elbows in horse-radish, fat, and gravy. So the countess sat silent while the banquet proceeded.
“Beef, Harry?” shouted the young heir to his friend Baker. “Oh! but I see it isn’t your turn yet. I beg your pardon, Miss Bateson,” and he sent to that lady a pound and a half of excellent meat, cut out with great energy in one slice, about half an inch thick.
And so the banquet went on.
Before dinner Frank had found himself obliged to make numerous small speeches in answer to the numerous individual congratulations of his friends; but these were as nothing to the one great accumulated onus of an oration which he had long known that he should have to sustain after the cloth was taken away. Someone of course would propose his health, and then there would be a clatter of voices, ladies and gentlemen, men and girls; and when that was done he would find himself standing on his legs, with the room about him, going round and round and round.
Having had a previous hint of this, he had sought advice from his cousin, the Honourable George, whom he regarded as a dab at speaking; at least, so he had heard the Honourable George say of himself.
“What the deuce is a fellow to say, George, when he stands up after the clatter is done?”
“Oh, it’s the easiest thing in life,” said the cousin. “Only remember this: you mustn’t get astray; that is what they call presence of mind, you know. I’ll tell you what I do, and I’m often called up, you know; at our agriculturals I always propose the farmers’ daughters: well, what I do is this—I keep my eye steadfastly fixed on one of the bottles, and never move it.”
“On one of the bottles!” said Frank; “wouldn’t it be better if I made a mark of some old covey’s head? I don’t like looking at the table.”
“The old covey’d move, and then you’d be done; besides there isn’t the least use in the world in looking up. I’ve heard people say, who go to those sort of dinners every day of their lives, that whenever anything witty is said; the fellow who says it is sure to be looking at the mahogany.”
“Oh, you know I shan’t say anything witty; I’ll be quite the other way.”
“But there’s no reason you shouldn’t learn the manner. That’s the way I succeeded. Fix your eye on one of the bottles; put your thumbs in your waistcoat pockets; stick out your elbows, bend your knees a little, and then go ahead.”
“Oh, ah! go ahead; that’s all very well; but you can’t go ahead if you haven’t got any steam.”
“A very little does it. There can be nothing so easy as your speech. When one has to say something new every year about the farmers’ daughters, why one has to use one’s brains a bit. Let’s see: how will you begin? Of course, you’ll say that you are not accustomed to this sort of thing; that the honour conferred upon you is too much for your feelings; that the bright array of beauty and talent around you quite overpowers your tongue, and all that sort of thing. Then declare you’re a Gresham to the backbone.”
“Oh, they know that.”
“Well, tell them again. Then of course you must say something about us; or you’ll have the countess as black as old Nick.”
“Abut my aunt, George? What on earth can I say about her when she’s there herself before me?”
“Before you! of course; that’s just the reason. Oh, say any lie you can think of; you must say something about us. You know we’ve come down from London on purpose.”